DoT Podcast EP60: Women In Comedy Festival Wrap Up plus New Music from The Smoking Flowers

The Women In Comedy Festival is one of my favorite annual events in Boston, and has been since its more humble beginning in 2009, when most of the shows were held in one venue, ImprovBoston. It has expanded in some way every year, and this year, they brought in some scouts all over the industry to see some of the amazing talent – 115 acts in all. I bounced around to different shows all five days of the festival, and tried to catch people at after parties or between venues. I got four on site, which make up this episode, and one other by phone, with headliner Emma Willmann, which will be next week’s episode.

I interviewed three stand-up comedians and one filmmaker for this week’s episode – Nina Daniels, Will Martin, Tina Friml, and Dawn Smith. I’ll give them each their own introductions as they come up. Daniels calls herself a triple minority in comedy – a black woman who plays the cello. You can find out more about her and her web series, The Model’s Diet, on www.ninadaniels.com. Martin had a standout set on one of strangest showcase of the week, “Rated G n. R,” a mix of clean and blue standup backed by a Guns n’ Roses cover band, Cocaine Tongue. He’s on Twitter at @MrWillMartin. Friml killed on the NBC Comedy Spotlight show, and she’s been doing comedy less than two years. Dawn Smith used to work on political ad campaigns. Now she makes fun of them on Paid For By, the web series she created, wrote, directed, and co-produced. Smith has two episodes done and is looking for funding to finish up the series, so if you hear this and you’re inclined to help, you can find out how at paidforby.com.

This week’s featured track comes to us from wife and husband team The Smoking Flowers. It’s called “Young & Brave,” and it’s the first single from their upcoming album, Let’s Die Together, out June 8. If you come to the Department of Tangents site on Monday morning, you’ll get to see the video in which they play some of their favorite musicians, from Johnny and June to John and Yoko to all four Ramones. You’ll get to see the video and read a short e-mail interview with the band.

You can listen to and download the podcast from the player below, or subscribe/review on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. Enjoy!